Messenger - Vol. 4, No. 3, Page 7
1995
New Beginnings offered to recently separated
New Beginnings, based in Washington, D.C., now has 1,350 members and
offers more than 40 discussion meetings a month. The organization also
sponsors regular social events, weekend retreats and meetings, where
experts, such as attorneys or financial planners, talk about issues
that affect group members.
Carol Randolph, Delaware '73, says she will never forget the pain
and confusion she experienced when her first marriage ended in the
late 1970s."I felt like I was on the edge of an abyss, and it would
only have taken a little nudge to shove me over," she recalls.
During that bleak period, Randolph and a friend formed a small
support group for people involved in a marital separation or divorce,
a group that grew into an organization called New Beginnings. Randolph
now works full-time as its executive director.
"I wanted to understand the whole experience of separation. By
talking to other people who were going through it, I could make sense
of what was happening to me," says Randolph, who now is remarried and
has two young children. "Now that I have moved on and I'm not in the
middle of all the yuck, my fulfillment comes from being a catalyst to
other people."
New Beginnings, based in Washington, D.C., now has 1,350 members
and offers more than 40 discussion meetings a month. The organization
also sponsors regular social events, weekend retreats and meetings
where experts, such as attorneys or financial planners, talk about
issues that affect group members.
To be eligible to join, individuals must be divorced or
physically separated from a spouse. About 60 percent of the group's
members are female, and their ages range from the late 20s to the late
60s. About 3,000 people have belonged to New Beginnings over the
years, and 95 couples have gotten married after meeting through the
group.
"New Beginnings provides a community in which people can find the
company of others while they heal, where they can learn and practice
new social skills to help them move on to, hopefully, more healthy
relationships," Randolph says.
A double-major in English and theatre at Delaware, Randolph had
planned to make her living on stage. "This was not my goal when I
graduated from Delaware," the Silver Spring, Md., resident says of New
Beginnings. "I was going to go to acting school and change people's
lives that way. I still am using my theatrical background when I
conduct meetings, and I still am influencing people's lives, I'm just
not doing it through a character.
"There are lots of ways to help people, and I was lucky enough to
walk into this. I truly feel the opportunity to create New Beginnings
was a gift. I am not an overly religious person, but in many ways I
feel like I was an instrument."
Randolph married her first husband (also an aspiring actor) in
1976. The couple separated in 1978 while she was working as an
administrative assistant for a trade association in Washington, D.C.
It was here that she met the woman with whom she started New
Beginnings.
Over lunch, the two women would talk about their separations and
their feelings. They joked about forming a support group and placing
an ad to attract members in situations similar to theirs. Randolph
eventually did write an ad, and she placed it in the September 1979
issue of Washingtonian magazine. The ad generated 14 responses and
nine attendees at the first meeting in October. New Beginnings was
born.
Randolph, who now trains others to facilitate New Beginnings
meetings, says that ending a marriage can consume up to five years of
a person's life. Couples first endure the problems that prompt a
separation. Then, some states require that couples spend as much as a
year in separation before filing for divorce. Once the divorce papers
have been filed, resolving issues relating to the divorce can be time-
consuming, too.
"It is devastating. Your entire future feels like you're looking
into a black hole. For many people, it is a really awful time," she
says.
When Randolph started New Beginnings, she had been separated one
year and already was dating the man she'd marry six years later, Craig
Durkin. He joined her at New Beginnings meetings then, and today he
runs the organization's facilitator training program.
She and Durkin started a couples group in March 1987 called
One+One, which today has a membership of 60 couples. To belong, at
least one person in the relationship must be in or have been in New
Beginnings. The focus of One+One is to help its members build positive
relationships.
Since its inception, New Beginnings has received much
recognition. It has been written about in the Washington Post and, in
1990, was named the Self-Help Group of the Year by the Mental Health
Association of Northern Virginia. Two years later, the University of
Delaware honored Randolph with a Presidential Citation for Outstanding
Achievement.
"Life is not the straight path I thought it was at 21," Randolph
says. "Things happen over which we have little control. It continues
to be a source of wonder to me that something as magicial as New
Beginnings grew out of my deepest pain. Managing a support group for
separated and divorced people was not a destination on my map when I
began my journey, but now I can't imagine doing anything that would
give me more fulfillment.
"I continue to get immense satisfaction from sharing in people's
lives when they are going through a major transformation," Randolph
says. "New Beginnings has made a difference in the lives of people who
have come through our doors, and that is important to me. Because of
us, they learn that an end is also a new beginning."
-Marylee Sauder, Delaware '83